Security Bars and Processing; Delay of Effective Date

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <CFR>8 CFR Part 208</CFR> <DEPDOC>[CIS No. 2791-25; DHS Docket No. USCIS-2020-0013]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1615-AC57</RIN> DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE <SUBAGY>Executive Office for Immigration Review</SUBAGY> <CFR>8 CFR Part 1208</CFR> <DEPDOC>[A.G. Order No. 6106-2024]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1125-AB08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Security Bars and Processing; Delay of Effective Date</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”); Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”), Department of Justice (“DOJ”). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim final rule with request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> On December 23, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) (collectively, “the Departments”) published a final rule entitled Security Bars and Processing (“Security Bars final rule”) to define “danger to the security of the United States” to include certain emergency public health concerns. The Departments have delayed the final rule's effective date such that it has never gone into effect. This rulemaking further delays the Security Bars final rule's effective date until December 31, 2025. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> As of December 27, 2024, the effective date of the final rule published December 23, 2020, at 85 FR 84160, which was delayed by the rules published at 86 FR 6847 (Jan. 25, 2021), 86 FR 15069 (Mar. 22, 2021), 86 FR 73615 (Dec. 28, 2021), and 87 FR 79789 (Dec. 28, 2022), is further delayed until December 31, 2025. <E T="03">Submission of public comments:</E> Comments must be submitted on or before January 27, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on this rulemaking, identified by DHS Docket No. USCIS-2020-0013, through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the website instructions for submitting comments. The electronic Federal Docket Management System will accept comments prior to midnight eastern time at the end of the day listed in the <E T="02">DATES</E> section. Comments submitted in a manner other than the one listed above, including emails or letters sent to the Departments' officials, will not be considered comments on the rule and may not receive a response from the Departments. Please note that the Departments cannot accept any comments that are hand-delivered or couriered. In addition, the Departments cannot accept comments contained on any form of digital media storage devices, such as CDs, DVDs, or USB drives. The Departments are not accepting mailed comments at this time. If you cannot submit your comment by using <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> please contact Samantha Deshommes, Chief, Regulatory Coordination Division, Office of Policy and Strategy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, by telephone at (240) 721-3000 for alternate instructions. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">For USCIS:</E> Rená Cutlip-Mason, Chief, Division of Humanitarian Affairs, Office of Policy and Strategy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, 5900 Capital Gateway Drive, Camp Springs, MD 20588-0009; telephone (240) 721-3000 (not a toll-free call). <E T="03">For EOIR:</E> Sarah Flinn, Acting Assistant Director for Policy, Office of Policy, Executive Office for Immigration Review, Department of Justice, 5107 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041; telephone (703) 305-0289 (not a toll-free call). </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation</HD> Interested parties are invited to comment on this action to further delay the effective date of the Security Bars final rule by submitting relevant written data, views, or arguments. To provide the most assistance to the Departments, comments should reference specific portions of the rule; explain the reason for any recommendation; and include data, information, or authority that supports the recommended course of action. Comments must be submitted in English, or an English translation must be provided. Comments submitted in a manner other than those listed above, including emails or letters sent to the Departments' officials, will not be considered comments on the rule and may not receive a response from the Departments. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> If you submit a comment, you must include the agency name and the DHS Docket No. USCIS-2020-0013 for this rulemaking. All submissions will be posted, without change, to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and will include any personal information you provide. Therefore, submitting this information makes it public. You may wish to consider limiting the amount of personal information that you provide in any public comment submission you make to the Departments. The Departments may withhold information provided in comments from public viewing that they determine may impact the privacy of an individual or is offensive. For additional information, please read the Privacy and Security Notice available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket and to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> referencing DHS Docket No. USCIS-2020-0013. You may also sign up for email alerts on the online docket to be notified when comments are posted or when the final rule is published. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> On December 23, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Departments published the Security Bars final rule to amend existing regulations to provide that certain emergency public health concerns generated by a communicable disease constitute circumstances for which there are “reasonable grounds for regarding [a noncitizen  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> ] as a danger to the security of the United States” or “reasonable grounds to believe that [a noncitizen] is a danger to the security of the United States,” making the noncitizen ineligible to be granted (1) asylum in the United States under section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA” or “the Act”), 8 U.S.C. 1158; (2) withholding of removal under section 241(b)(3) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1231(b)(3); and (3) withholding of removal under regulations implementing U.S. obligations under Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“CAT”), <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> 8 CFR 208.16(c), 1208.16(c). <E T="03">See</E> Security Bars and Processing, 85 FR 84160 (Dec. 23, 2020). <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  The Departments use the term “noncitizen” to be synonymous with the term “alien” as it is used in the Immigration and Nationality Act. <E T="03">See</E> INA 101(a)(3), 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(3); 8 CFR 1001.1(gg). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, art. 3, Dec. 10, 1984, 1465 U.N.T.S. 85, 114. </FTNT> Although the Security Bars final rule was scheduled to take effect January 22, 2021, intervening events and circumstances have prompted the Departments to delay its effective date, most recently until December 31, 2024. <E T="03">See</E> Security Bars and Processing; Delay of Effective Date, 86 FR 6847 (Jan. 25, 2021); Security Bars and Processing; Delay of Effective Date, 86 FR 15069 (Mar. 22, 2021); Security Bars and Processing; Delay of Effective Date, 86 FR 73615 (Dec. 28, 2021); Security Bars and Processing; Delay of Effective Date, 87 FR 79789 (Dec. 28, 2022) (“December 2022 Delay IFR”  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> ). <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  “IFR” means “interim final rule.” </FTNT> In the December 2022 Delay IFR, the Departments explained that they were delaying the Security Bars final rule's effective date because its implementation would be infeasible due to a preliminary injunction  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> against another asylum-related rule, Procedures for Asylum and Withholding of Removal; Credible Fear and Reasonable Fear Review, 85 FR 80274 (Dec. 11, 2020) (“Global Asylum final rule”). 87 FR 79790-91. Further, the Departments determined that, as a result of a subsequent, intervening rulemaking, Procedures for Credible Fear Screening and Consideration of Asylum, Withholding of Removal, and CAT Protection Claims by Asylum Officers, 87 FR 18078 (Mar. 29, 2022) (“Asylum Processing IFR”), implementation of the Security Bars final rule would result in conflicting and confusing regulatory text. <E T="03">Id.</E> at 79791-92. Finally, the Departments stated that delaying the effective date would permit the Departments time to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking regarding whether to modify or rescind the Security Bars final rule. <E T="03">Id.</E> at 79792-93. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See Pangea Legal Servs.</E> v. <E T="03">U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec.,</E> 512 F. Supp. 3d 966, 977 (N.D. Cal. 2021). </FTNT> The Departments requested public comment on the second, third, and fourth delays and received comments addressing both the delay of the effective date and a potential proposal to modify or rescind the Security Bars final rule. In the December 2022 Delay IFR, the Departments addressed previously received comments related to the Security Bars final rule's delayed effective date. <E T="03">See id.</E> at 79792-93 (discussing and responding to comments related to the delayed effective date). The Departments received comments in response to the December 2022 Delay IFR. Relevant to the delayed effective date, most ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 34k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━